FIG. 1 shows a typical computer network 100 as known from prior art. The computer network 100 may comprise devices of various nature which are connected and may communicate with each other through the network. The computer network 100 may for example comprise one or a plurality of computers 101-103, a server 104, peripheral devices (not shown) such as printers, sensors . . . Generally a connection provided by the network between the computers 101-103 and the server 104 allows to receive or send information from any computer or server to any other computer or server. In other words the connection from each computer 101-103 or the server 104 to the network enables bi-directional communication to and from the network. In particular the computers 101-103 may request information from the server 104 and receive the information from the server 104 through the network.
An example of a service that uses the bi-directional communication is the exploitation of advertisement space on a display of a computer. Advertisement space may for example be implemented as one or many banners included in a graphical page generated by an application running on the computer. In order to exploit the advertisement space, the application triggers a process of advertisement in which a message is transmitted to a specific advertisement server through the network. In response to the message, the advertisement server sends determined advertisement data to the computer through the network. The advertisement data is inserted in the banner as appropriate and may be processed and displayed as part of the graphical page.
Advertising is a common way of generating revenues. The revenues of advertising may for example be used to finance a service made available on a widespread network known as the INTERNET. The service is typically requested from a server connected to the INTERNET by a client also connected to the INTERNET and using an application called INTERNET browser. The service is provided by way of software downloaded from the server by the client and subsequently run by the client. The service typically produces a graphical output that is displayed to be seen by a user of the client. The service provides advertisement space that allows to render advertisement to the user.
An advertiser will generally want to determine a number of parameters under which his advertisement is to be brought and displayed to the user. The parameters may for example include a number of times that the advertisement is displayed during a certain period of time, and in which type of service the advertisement will appear.
Referring to FIG. 2, the number of parameters under which advertisement is to be brought to the user is used to prepare an advertisement campaign which is represented in box 200. The advertisement campaign may include parameters from one or many advertisers for a number of distinct advertisements to be displayed in one or a plurality of available advertisement spaces. FIG. 2 further shows a server 201 and a computer 202 connected to the server 201 through a bi-directional communication link, such as for example the computer network shown in FIG. 1 or the INTERNET. For reasons of understanding FIG. 2 shows only one computer 202. However a plurality of computer may be connected to serve 201 using a bi-directional communication link. After a service is downloaded from the server 201 to the computer 202, it is run inside the computer 202. The running service triggers a request for advertisement in order to display advertisement in available advertisement space, and sends the request to the server 201. Subsequently the serve 201 checks with the management of the advertisement campaign in box 200 which advertisement should be sent to the computer 202, and sends the selected advertisement to the computer 202.
The server 201 allows to count how often a specific advertisement was sent out to a specific service, and to submit the resulting count to the management of the advertisement campaign in the box 200. The resulting count is used by the management of the advertisement campaign in box 200 to optimise a selection of advertisements to be sent to the requesting services in order to meet the number of parameters specified by the advertiser(s). The count may be realised by the server 201 regardless of the number of computers connected to the server 201, and requesting the specific advertisement. As an example, the parameters provided by an advertiser for an advertisement campaign might specify that an advertisement A1 needs to be displayed 10000 times in an advertisement space S1 in a service SE1, in a period of time of 30 days. During the period of 30 day, every time the service SE1 is run on a computer connected to the server 201, the corresponding computer sends a request for advertisement to the server 201, submitting the parameters corresponding to the service SE1 and the advertisement space S1. Accordingly, the management of the advertisement campaign 200 checks which advertisement should be selected. If the advertisement A1 has not yet been displayed 10000 times as specified, then the advertisement A1 is sent to the requesting computer and the number of times that the advertisement A1 has been displayed is updated by 1 in the management of the advertisement campaign 200.
FIG. 3 shows a further network configuration known from prior art as used in a television network. A broadcast operator 300 broadcasts information including services and audio/visual data, to subscriber Set Top Boxes (STBs) 301-303. The STBs allow to process information received and output resulting audio and video to appropriate rendering devices (not shown). The broadcast may for example be achieved by means of satellite transmission, cable network, or terrestrial radio transmission. The STBs may to a certain extend be compared to the computers 101-103 from FIG. 1 or the computer 202 from FIG. 2 in that they allow to run a service resident in the STB or received by way of broadcast, and that advertisement space is thereby made available for advertisers. One difference between the network shown in FIG. 3 and the networks shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is that the STB may not send any information to the broadcast operator. More particularly, it is not possible for a STB to send a request for advertisement when the service is run. Hence advertisement provided by a management of an advertisement campaign 304 through server 305 needs to be broadcasted periodically to all the STBs 301-303 in order to be available when a service requiring advertisement is run on any one of the STBs 301-303. It is not possible in this network to count how often a specific advertisement was used inside a specific service because the server 300 may not receive any request from the STBs 301-303. As a consequence the management of advertisement campaign 304 may not have full control on the number of times that advertisements are used by services run on the STBs.